Mentee Portfolio vs. Grand Prize Winner Portfolio

Last week, we worked on putting together your brand new Physical Portfolio on the post “How to Put a Children’s Illustrator Portfolio Together”. Today, I will try to expand on what we briefly touched on Image Selection and Flow & Continuity on last week’s post while sharing my 2011 and 2012 Portfolios.Why am I sharing my 2011 and 2012 Portfolios?
For two reasons:1Every year I considered attending the SCBWI Los Angeles Conference, I looked at the information for the Portfolio Showcase and the list of winners from previous years. Every year, I wished I could see their winning portfolios. The portfolios were not available. I want to change that now by sharing my portfolios.

Sharing the selection of illustrations may show what the judges were looking for those years. Hopefully that will help you win a portfolio award, an Illustrator Mentorship or the Grand Prize at the Portfolio Showcase this year.

2011 SCBWI Los Angeles Illustrator Mentorship Portfolio

Each year during the Portfolio Showcase, the Illustrators Committee members and a guest Mentor select 5 to 6 portfolios for the Illustrator Mentorship Program. By entering your portfolio to the Portfolio Showcase, you automatically have a chance to be part of the Illustrator Mentorship Program. The Program helps push your work to the next level.

Here are the illustrations included in my 2011 Portfolio. Illustrations were shown in the same order in which I present them here (left to right, top to bottom).

Poppy’s Best Day Ever

Pajarito

Abuelita Knows Best

Sheep and Clouds

Moonlight

Bedtime

Fall

Sunday Visit

Wake Up

Morning

Oh, Diver!

In 2011, the Mentors were David Diaz, Priscilla Burris, Cecilia Yung, Pat Cummings and E. B. Lewis. Each one of them gave me a 15 minute portfolio critique. Here is the list of some of the comments I heard that day:

Add expression, emotion and interaction to the characters

Overall good sense of design but avoid being decorative

Push the use of patterns further

Use hierarchy of sizes and color to move the eye around the page

Create rules for characters and stick to them

Study folk art and the paintings of Rousseau, Gaugin, Kahlo and Rivera

After the Conference, I took a month to process all the information the Mentors had given me. During that time, I didn’t paint or draw. Once I was ready to get started, this is what I attempted to do with my work:

{ Design vs. Decoration } Every time I sketched and found myself adding more and more elements to a page, I stopped and asked myself if the elements would help communicate the emotion. If they didn’t, I removed them. I continue to practice this exercise the most. I continue to struggle with this point the most.

{ Characters } I tried to know my characters. Once I started making them someone I knew, I achieved more emotion and personality. The “Ant and Grasshopper” pieces were the perfect project to practice this.

{ Patterns } I had to paint the final art for “Dana’s Trip” after the Conference. It gave me a chance to experiment with patterns, folk art and culture.

{ Color } It had been a year since I switched from colored pencil to mixed media. I was more comfortable with the new technique but I felt my palette felt right out of the tube. I reduced the amount of colors in my palette and tried more muted pieces.

The pieces below were the results of my attempts to fix the problems pointed out by the Mentors. And this is specifically what I did when I was putting the portfolio together:

Included 2, 3 or 4 pieces from the same project

Only 1 illustration was a loose, stand alone piece

All illustrations from the same project were placed together to help with continuity

The stand alone piece was at the end to help “close” the portfolio

Opened the portfolio with pieces that filled the pages better (bigger images)

2012 SCBWI Los Angeles Grand Prize Winner Portfolio

These are the illustrations in the 2012 Portfolio. Illustrations are shown in the same order in which I presented them. The judges for the Portfolio Showcase that year were: Neal Porter, Tamar Brazis, Deb Warren, Jennifer Rofe and Stefanie Von Borstel.

Want to learn more about the Illustrator Mentorship Program? Watch this video where Cecilia Yung, Art Director and Vice President at Penguin Books for Young Readers in the U.S. and SCBWI Illustrator Committee member, tells you all about it.

Know of any other Winning Portfolios shared online to add to the list? Have any questions? Leave a comment. Please, do come back and let me know if this post helps you this Conference Season.

Best of luck to you and until next Tuesday for the new and last post in this Portfolio Making Series. We are also closing with a Giveaway! A brand, new, 11″x14″ Kolo Newport Album. Come back for that! :)

What a great post, great work and great sharing! Thanks so much, it is very interesting to see what portfolios do well and why, especially reading the feedback you received. I love the thick texture on your images and wonder how you created that.

Hello Yvonne! Thank you for the visit, time and comment :) The Mentorship Program was key for my development. I have only good things to say about it. I prepare my surface before I start painting. I add texture with mediums and papers. Hope this helps!

What a great post! It is wonderful to see the progression in your work and to hear how you handled constructive advice from the mentors. Your experience and the way you generously shared insight on the whole process is very inspiring. Wishing you continued success! Your work is amazing.

Thank-you for presenting your work and including the insider advice. I hope more people share their portfolios. It certainly communicates the kind of information we all need to know, but never seem to share. You are an asset to the kidlit community. Thanks, and best wishes.

Hello Joanne. It’s nice to meet you :) I’m glad this post helps you. I think it’s a matter of time rather than willingness to share. Posts do take a long time to write and put together. I bet if you were to ask other winners to post their portfolios, they would. It would be great to add more links to the list, don’t you think? Remember, Eliza Wheeler has her portfolios posted. Best wishes to you, too! :)

Gorgeous work, worthy of a grand prize! Thank you very much, Juana, for taking time to give us a behind the scenes look at your journey to success. I look forward to seeing and buying the books you will create!

Thank you so much for sharing these articles. I’m planning to reguster for the SCWBI 2019 Winter Conference and though I would love to share my portfolio, I’m exhausted by the struggle trying to figure out what to do.

Do I create a storybook of myself as an illustrator? Do I just include artwork with no text?

My style is all over the place, since I tend to adapt it for different age groups and projects. Do I showcase it by age group, or do I pick one age group and stick with it?

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